INDEPENDENT MEDIA by Steve Anderson
On August 9, I woke up to headlines like “Google Goes Evil” and “Google Greed and the End of Net Neutrality.” As someone who has worked alongside Google to keep the internet open (AKA Net Neutrality) in Canada, I was stunned. Did the open internet community just lose its biggest industry supporter?
The...

NUTRISPEAK by Vesanto Melina
Someone I know took a peanut butter sandwich in his lunch bag every day – for seven years. Then what happened? He didn’t give up peanut butter, but when he finished school and got a job as a computer whiz, once in a while he ate a warm meal in the company cafeteria, to add a little variety.
Sandwiches are named after...

ON THE GARDEN PATH by Carolyn Herriot
The honeybee Apis mellifera was brought to North America by European colonists in 1662 to pollinate their crops. Before European honeybees were imported to North America, generations of growers depended upon the 4,000+ species of native bees that lived there. In Canada, there are 800 species of native bees. These...

UNIVERSE WITHIN by Gwen Randall-Young
Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves. – Carl Gustav Jung
Life is like a laboratory for our learning and other people are the raw materials with which we work. There are no absolutes, however, because everything is based on perception. Human perception is...

FILMS WORTH WATCHING by Robert Alstead
It seems more like a decade than a year since VIFF last came round. Make that two decades. With Copenhagen’s failure fast becoming a dot in the rear view mirror, one filmmaker has returned to footage from the first “Earth Summit” in Rio for inspiration. In Severn, The Voice of Our Children, Jean-Paul...

SCIENCE MATTERS by David Suzuki with Faisal Moola
The Gulf of Mexico disaster is just the latest in a long history of “accidents.” As Canada considers drilling for oil in the Arctic now that ice seems to be less of an impediment, we should remember that in October 1970, a blowout at a natural gas well on King Christian Island in the Arctic Ocean...

Be ocean wise
The Ocean Wise logo on a restaurant menu, seafood-counter or seafood product is the trusted symbol of ocean-friendly seafood choices. With more than 360 partners and over 2,800 locations across Canada, Ocean Wise makes it easy for consumers to make sustainable seafood choices that ensure the health of our oceans for years to come. Learn more...

Vander Zalm urges Premier to hold free fall vote on HST initiative petition
Fight HST leader and former BC premier, Bill Vander Zalm, has sent a letter urging Premier Gordon Campbell to agree to accept the Initiative petition to end the HST for a vote in the legislature this fall.
Vander Zalm says the court ruling on August 20 paves the way for the...

article and photos by Ezra Manson
From August 4-20, 16-year-old Ezra Manson, along with 78 other international students, participated in a an exploration of the northern reaches of Nunavik and eastern Baffin Island, with the goal of developing the knowledge, skills, perspectives and practices needed to become polar ambassadors and environmentally responsible...

by Lucy Sharratt
Ten years ago, Monsanto tried to convince the world – Europe, in particular –that genetically engineered (GE) crops were needed to ‘feed’ the hungry. At that time, the message was largely greeted with derision as a cynical ploy to sell a product that no one, including people in developing countries,...

by Rita Wong
Recently, I had the honour of participating in a healing walk through the Alberta tar sands. Organized and led by indigenous people – and open to everyone – roughly 100 walkers trekked through a 13-kilometre loop that could be called the ground zero of Alberta’s dirty oil industry. The healing walk started auspiciously, with...

by Sherry Baker
For years, natural health proponents have been sounding the alarm about the dangers of new drugs being pushed on consumers. But is that a one-sided, inaccurate view? Not at all. In fact, new research now shows the problems with Big Pharma’s hugely hyped medications are far worse than most people have even dreamed. Independent reviewers...

DRUG BUST by Alan Cassels
It was five years ago this month that Common Ground’s publisher Joseph Roberts asked me to write a column for his magazine. He tracked me down at a book festival at the Vancouver Public Library, as I was about to deliver a talk on my just-released book, Selling Sickness, which I co-wrote with Australian journalist Ray...